Melissa Kite is the Deputy Political Editor of The Sunday Telegraph and writes a weekly column for The Spectator magazine. She divides her time between South London and Surrey where she rides her horses.

Why are the Conservatives proposing a tax break for the lucky?

Something is troubling me about the Tories' plans to reward married couples with tax breaks. In an interview timed to coincide with this key policy launch, David Cameron says the following about the great institution of marriage: "It’s a lucky thing if you just meet someone who makes you incredibly happy."

You see, I don’t think the state should be intervening to help lucky people. Or that we unlucky singletons, who after all would love to be married but just haven’t had the romantic breaks, should be subsidising those who’ve already trampled us to the floor in the evolutionary race to find partners.

Married people are already enjoying countless advantages. They don’t need the Government to reward them further while the unlucky in love – Britain’s largest growing demographic - continue to prop up the bars of our towns and cities looking mournfully for a mate.

Also, let’s be honest, married people aren’t stable because they got married. They got married because they were stable. The emotional screw-ups of this world might well try to get themselves to the altar for a tax break of £150 a year but they won’t stay hitched for long because they will be as dysfunctional married as they were single.

But let us put these quibbles aside for a moment. David Cameron thinks wedlock should be financially rewarded by the state. So I got to thinking, as the great singleton Carrie Bradshaw would say, about the other lucky things Mr Cameron might think about incentivising:

Sunshine – a tax break for all those who manage to spend an average of three weeks a year in the sun. People who go on holiday are more likely to be good parents and nice to their neighbours so should be rewarded with vouchers entitling them to a trip to Bermuda.

Mom’s Apple Pie – people who eat home baked goods are more likely to be good parents and nice to their neighbours so should be rewarded with tax breaks encouraging them to eat more wholesome home cooking, including vouchers for free flour and sugar.

Health, Wealth and Happiness – healthy, prosperous, contented people are more likely to be good parents and nice to their neighbours so…